WASHINGTON -- Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.), the chairwoman
of the Agriculture Committee, pledged to oppose the extension of the
so-called the Monsanto Protection Act, a victory for advocates who have
been pressing for its repeal.Stabenow made her pledge in a conversation with Sen. Jeff Merkley
(D-Ore.), who has been pushing the Senate to vote on an amendment to the
farm bill that would repeal the provision. That vote was blocked by
Republicans and on Thursday morning the Senate voted to end debate and
move to final passage.When two senators have a pre-arranged public conversation on the
Senate floor, it's known as a colloquy and is typically the bow that
ties up a deal struck beforehand. While Merkley was unable to get a
repeal vote, the colloquy is a significant win for him, with Stabenow
promising she will oppose any attempt to extend the Monsanto Protection
Act in backroom negotiations.Monsanto is a global seed and herbicide company that specializes in
genetically modified crops. The MPA prevents judges from enforcing
injunctions on genetically modified seeds even if they are deemed
unsafe. Monsanto has argued
that it is unfair to single the company out in the nickname for the
law, which is technically known as the Farmer Assurance Provision, when
other major agribusiness players also support it.The measure was originally enacted into law by being inserted into an
unrelated spending bill and is set to expire later this year. "The
Monsanto Protection Act refers to a policy rider the House slipped into
the recently passed continuing resolution and sent over to the Senate,"
Merkley noted on the floor. "Because of the time-urgent consideration of
this must-pass legislation -- necessary to avert a government shutdown
-- this policy rider slipped through without examination or debate." "I wish to assure my friend that I think it would be inappropriate
for that language to be adopted in a conference committee or otherwise
adopted in a manner designed to bypass open debate in the relevant
committees and this chamber," Stabenow told Merkley. "I will do my best
to oppose any effort to add this kind of extension in the conference
committee on this farm bill or to otherwise extend it without
appropriate legislative examination."In an interview with The Huffington Post, Sen Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) made
the case for the MPA, arguing that the measure aimed to protect farmers
who had already purchased seeds that were later deemed unsafe. "I was
raised -- my mom and dad were dairy farmers -- once you've made a
decision to plant a crop for that year, you can't go back and undo that
decision," he said. Requiring Monsanto or other seed companies to
compensate the farmer for lost income wasn't a viable strategy, he said,
if the seeds had previously been okayed before the court ruling. "You
can't sue them for selling a crop that the federal government said is
okay to plant," he said. The measure enables the secretary of the Department of Agriculture
to block a judicial injunction and allow the planting of a seed. The
USDA, he said, called the provision redundant. "All that did was repeat
authority that the secretary in a hearing the other day ... said he
already had," Blunt said. "And it didn't require the secretary to do
anything that the secretary thought was the wrong thing to do. Which is
one of the reasons I thought it was fine."

Merkley's repeal effort saw an outpouring of grassroots support, and a
petition announced by his office quickly garnered more than 100,000
signatures. A petition put out by Food Democracy Now, which organized a
protest at the White House shortly after the MPA became law in March,
similarly picked up a quick 100,000 signatures, and a petition pushed by
CREDO Action, an online progressive group with some three million
members, did the same."That's big for us, the fact that it went from zero to 100,000 just
in 24 hours," Becky Bond, the head of CREDO, told HuffPost at the time.
"People are really passionate about this issue. A lot of the time people
feel helpless with regard to corporate decisions ... The fact that
there's someone in the Senate who's fighting for this is exciting to
people and they're eager to get their names on it."Watch the exchange between Merkley and Stabenow above, or read the transcript below:

Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I rise to talk about an issue
that is important to many Oregonians, section 735 of the continuing
resolution, also known as the Monsanto Protection Act. I appreciate this
opportunity to engage in a dialog about it with Senator Stabenow, who,
as the chair of the committee, is doing a magnificent job of guiding
this farm bill through the Senate.
The Monsanto Protection Act refers to a policy rider the House
slipped into the recently passed continuing resolution and sent over to
the Senate. Because of the time-urgent consideration of this must-pass
legislation--necessary to avert a government shutdown--this policy rider
slipped through without examination or debate.That outcome is unfortunate and unacceptable because the content of
the policy rider is nothing short of astounding. It allows the
unrestricted sale and planting of new variants of genetically modified
seeds that a court ruled have not been properly examined for their
effect on other farmers, the environment, and human health.The impact on other farmers can be significant. The current situation
in Oregon of GMO wheat escaping a field test--resulting in several
nations suspending the import of white wheat from the United
States--underscores the fact that poorly regulated GMO cultivation can
pose a significant threat to farmers who are not cultivating GMO crops.Equally troubling to the policy rider's allowance of unrestricted
sale and planting of GMO seeds is the fact that the Monsanto Protection
Act instructs the seed producers to ignore a ruling of the court,
thereby raising profound questions about the constitutional separation
of powers and the ability of our courts to hold agencies accountable.Moreover, while there is undoubtedly some difference in this
legislative body on the wisdom of the core policy, there should be
outrage on all sides about the manner in which this policy rider was
adopted. I have certainly heard that outrage from my constituents in
Oregon. They have come to my town halls to protest, and more than 2,200
have written to me.In an accountable and transparent legislative system, the Monsanto
Protection Act would have had to be considered by the Agriculture
Committee, complete with testimony by relevant parties. If the committee
had approved the act, there would have been a subsequent opportunity to
debate it on the floor of this Chamber. Complete transparency with a
full opportunity for the public to weigh in is essential.Since these features of an accountable and transparent legislative
system were not honored and because I think the policy itself is
unacceptable, I have offered an amendment to the farm bill which would
repeal this rider in its entirety. To this point, my efforts to
introduce that amendment have been objected to, and it takes unanimous
consent. This type of rider has no place in an appropriations bill to
fund the Federal Government, and a bill that interferes with our system
of checks and balances should never have become law.Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I absolutely understand Senator
Merkley's concerns about the issue and the concerns of many people about
this issue. There has been a long-running understanding that we should
not be legislating on appropriations, and I share the concern of my
colleague that the Agriculture Committee and other appropriate
committees didn't have an opportunity to engage in this debate.As the Senator from Oregon knows, this language was included in the
continuing resolution, the bill that funds the government, and that bill
will expire on September 30 of this year. I agree with my colleague; we
should not extend that provision through the appropriations process. We
should have the same type of full and transparent process that both
Senator Merkley and I have talked about today.I wish to assure my friend that I think it would be inappropriate for
that language to be adopted in a conference committee or otherwise
adopted in a manner designed to bypass open debate in the relevant
committees and this Chamber.I will do my best to oppose any effort to add this kind of extension
in the conference committee on this farm bill or to otherwise extend it
without appropriate legislative examination.Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I thank Senator Stabenow. I deeply
appreciate the commitment of my colleague to ensure that the Monsanto
Protection Act is not tucked into subsequent legislation in a manner
that bypasses full committee examination and Senate debate.The farm bill is extremely important to our Nation. The Senator from
Michigan has worked with me to incorporate a number of provisions that
are important to the farmers in Oregon, including disaster programs,
responding to forest fires, specialty crop research programs,
improvements in insurance for organic farmers, and low-cost loans
offered through rural electrical co-ops for energy-saving home and
business renovations.It has been a real pleasure to work with Senator Stabenow on those
provisions and, again, I thank the Senator for her support for them and
for advocating responsible legislative examination of measures such as
the Monsanto Protection Act.Ms. STABENOW. Madam President, I thank the Senator from Oregon for
his advocacy on so many important policies in this legislation. We
worked together closely on forest fires. Senator Merkley and I have been
on the phone many times. He wanted to make sure I was aware of what has
happened to farmers, homeowners, and landowners in Oregon.We share a great interest in so many areas as it relates to our
organic growers and rural development as well as what is happening in
terms of energy efficiency, and, as my friend mentioned, rural electric
co-ops.I thank Senator Merkley for his leadership in many areas, and I look
forward to working with the Senator from Oregon as we bring the farm
bill to a final vote.Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, again, I thank the chair for her
leadership. I know how much she looks forward to the conclusion of this
process as we try to enable folks to have various amendments which are
appropriate for the farm bill debated on the floor.

On May 31 world media headlines read similar
to this from Reuters: “Monsanto backing away from GMO crops in Europe.”
The original source for the story is attributed to a German left daily,
TAZ which printed excerpts from an interview with an official
spokeswoman of Monsanto Germany. Ursula Lüttmer-Ouazane reportedly told Taz “We’ve come to the conclusion that this has no broad acceptance at the moment.” Her remarks were circulated worldwide and Reuters interviewed Monsanto corporate spokesman Thomas Helscher who reportedly said,

“We’re going to sell
the GM seeds only where they enjoy broad farmer support, broad political
support and a functioning regulatory system. As far as we’re convinced
this only applies to a few countries in Europe today, primarily Spain
and Portugal.” [1]

Before the world opens the champagne to celebrate
the death of GMO and its paired herbicides such as Roundup, it is
worthwhile to look more closely at what was officially said. What Monsanto itself says A visit to the official website of Monsanto Germany
presents an official company press release referring to the media
statements:

”Right now the media
is flooded with reports that Monsanto has stopped the marketing of GMO
seeds in Germany and the EU. That is not correct…”

Then on the parent website of Monsanto in St. Louis, the following statement appears:

“We have a robust
business selling high-quality, conventional corn, oilseed rape and
vegetable seeds to our farmer customers in Europe. We’ve been telling
people in Europe for several years now that we’ll only sell biotech
seeds where they enjoy broad farmer support, broad political support and
a functioning regulatory system. These conditions apply only to a few
countries in Europe today, primarily Spain and Portugal. As Hugh Grant,
our CEO told the Financial Times in 2009, ‘Europe’s going to make up its
own mind in its own time.’ The only GM trait grown in Europe today is a
corn resistant to the European corn borer, an insect that can do
considerable damage to crops. Its cultivation accounts for less than 1%
of the all corn cultivated in Europe (by hectares).” [3]

Both statements are worth closer attention. First the German statement is a bit different from
the US version. It officially denies as false the press reports that
they have ceased marketing of GMO seeds in the EU. Second, their statement that they concentrate on
breeding and sale of conventional seeds and plant protection chemicals
is nothing other than a description of what the present status of
Monsanto sales in the EU, nothing more. Because of the limited use so
far of Monsanto GMO seeds in the EU, Monsanto business by definition is
focuses now where it earns money. However the “plant protection chemicals” Monsanto
refers to are primarily its own Roundup herbicide, which by license
agreement with farmers must be sold paired with all Monsanto GMO seeds,
but is also the number one weed killer sold in Europe and the world. It
has also been proven to be highly toxic even to human embryo cells. The US statement has interesting important
differences. First it gives no hint of any change in Monsanto policy
towards spreading GMO seeds in the EU. It states explicitly they will
continue to spread GMO seeds in Spain and Portugal, both EU countries.
And it cites chairman Hugh Grant, not to be confused with the Hollywood
actor, indicating the company expects the EU to come around on allowing
its GMO. And it cites the present status of its GMO corn in the EU.
Nothing more. No statement of a stop to GMO in the EU. Suspicious Timing… Yet for most of the world who don’t have time to
research the official statements of Monsanto but merely glance at a
Reuters or TAZ headline, the message has been delivered that Monsanto
has given up its EU effort on proliferating its GMO seeds. The timing of
the TAZ interview is suggestive of what seems to be a carefully
orchestrated Monsanto PR deception campaign. The TAZ original by writer
Jost Maurin appeared on the same day, May 31, less than one week after
March against Monsanto , a worldwide protest demonstrations against
Monsanto, took place in more than 400 cities in some 52 countries around
the world. [4]
The TAZ article that was then used as reference for all world media
after, appeared under the emotional and factually misleading headline:
Sieg für Anti-Gentech-Bewegung: Monsanto gibt Europa auf (Victory for
anti-GMO Movement: Monsanto Gives up Europe).The March against Monsanto was notable in several
key respects. Most alarming for Monsanto and the GMO cartel was the fact
that it was the first such demonstration not organized by anti-GMO NGOs
such as Greenpeace or BUND or Friends of the Earth. In Germany where
this author participated as a speaker in one of the events, it was all
organized by concerned activists via facebook. But the NGOs who formally
oppose GMO were reportedly nowhere to be found as sponsors or even
reportedly as active organizers. That march presented Monsanto and friends with a
frightening new element—the danger that that grass roots anti-GMO
protest would spread and make life even more difficult for GMO
proliferation in Africa, in China, India, Latin America and of course
eastern and western Europe. All indications are that the timing of the
well-formulated TAZ interview, notably with a left newspaper openly
opposed to Monsanto GMO, was an orchestrated attempt to “manage
perceptions” and take the headwind out of the sails of the growing
anti-GMO sentiment in the EU and abroad. For the moment, Monsanto has
gained a tactical victory in propaganda points as the broad public takes
the retreat at face value. As one experienced opponent of Monsanto GMO
put it, it bears all the hallmarks of a slick PR campaign, “like a
Burson & Marsteller tactic that applies to many controversial bad
practices and part of why it works is that it takes a long time to build
consumer/activist energy and momentum, whereas the PR-company can start
on a very short runway …”What Monsanto has not done is to recall its
already commercialized GMO Maize in the EU, that despite damning
independent scientific study of some 200 rats over a two year span
showing rats fed GMO maize and Monsanto Roundup herbicide showed
dramatically more cancer tumors, higher death rates and organ damage
compared with non-GMO-fed rats.[5]Moreover, Monsanto openly admits it is pushing its
way deep into the eastern European market for seeds, though mentioning
only conventional seeds. Monsanto Vice President for International
Corporate Affairs, Jesus Madrazo, stated that the company has been
focusing on gaining market share in the conventional corn market in
Ukraine, and that Eastern Europe and South America are key growth areas
for the company now.Then in the USA, it has leaked out that Monsanto
directly worked with its apparent current favorite US Senator, Roy
Blunt, a Republican from Monsanto’s home state of Missouri and one of
the major recipients of Monsanto campaign finance, to draft for Blunt an
obscure paragraph Blunt got into a spending bill, a bombshell that
exempts Monsanto from being sued for any damage its crops or chemicals
cause.[6]Called by opponents the Monsanto Protection Act,
many members of Congress were apparently unaware that the Monsanto
Protection Act was a part of the spending bill that they were voting on.
The Monsanto bill, signed into law by President Obama despite hundreds
of thousands of protest petitions not to, essentially gives Monsanto and
other GMO purveyors legal immunity, even if future research shows that
GMO seeds cause significant health problems, cancer, anything. The
federal courts no longer have any power to stop their spread, use, or
sales. [7] The only other corporations in the US enjoying such outrageous legal immunity are the pharmaceutical vaccine makers.What we have is a quite different picture from the
slick spin reported by TAZ and from there picked up worldwide
uncritically by mainstream media. Monsanto by its own open admission has
not ceased marketing its GMO products and herbicides in the EU. It has
not ceased imports of its GMO soybeans and GMO corn into the EU where it
has managed to escape the EU GMO labeling law. Monsanto also states it is concentrating on
building market share in eastern Europe, where often regulators are more
“relaxed” and in the notoriously corrupt Ukraine. They do not deny
promoting GMOs there either; rather they state positively their focus on
conventional seeds only. Simply put, the geopolitical stakes behind
Monsanto and the attempt to control the world’s most vital seeds of life
are far too high for the company to raise the white flag of surrender
so easily. A Monsanto precedent

There is a relevant precedent for this Monsanto PR
deception campaign. In 1999, after months of growing worldwide
anti-Monsanto protest over the fact Monsanto had made a takeover bid to
buy Mississippi company, Delta & Pine Land in order to acquire
Delta’s patent on a radical new GMO technique known officially as GURTS
(Genetic Use Restriction Technology) and popularly as Terminator
technology. Delta has won a patent together with the US Government’s
USDA for the Terminator. It would force a GMO seed or plant to “commit
suicide” after only one harvest, forcing the farmer to return each year
to Monsanto to buy new seeds regardless the price or availability.

The Terminator image threatened to derail the
entire fledgling GMO project at the outset such that Rockefeller
University President and GMO financial sponsor, Gordon Conway, president
of the Rockefeller Foundation, made a rush visit to meet Monsanto’s
board and convince them to make what was a tactical retreat in order to
limit damage to a very fragile GMO campaign worldwide. Monsanto
announced, deceptively it proved, that it would not pursue
“commercialization” of Terminator technology and it dropped its takeover
bid for patent holder Delta & Pine Land. The anti-GMO NGOs claimed a
huge victory and nothing was heard for seven years until, with no
fanfare, in 2006 Monsanto announced it was acquiring Terminator patent
co-holder Delta & Pine Land. This time there was scarcely a peep
from the anti-GMO lobby. They had lost momentum and the deal went ahead.
[8]

It remains to be seen if the forces for healthy non-GMO agriculture today prove as gullible as in 1999.

Seeking Food Ingredients That Aren’t Gene-Altered

By
STEPHANIE STROM Published: May 26, 2013 Food companies big and small are struggling to replace genetically modified ingredients with conventional ones.

Pressure is growing to label products made from genetically modified
organisms, or “G.M.O.” In Connecticut, Vermont and Maine, at least one
chamber of the state legislature has approved bills that would require
the labeling of foods that contain genetically modified ingredients, and
similar legislation is pending in more than two dozen other states.
This weekend, rallies were held around the globe against producers of
genetically altered ingredients, and consumers are threatening to
boycott products that are not labeled.

And so, for many businesses, the pressing concern is just what it will take to gain certification as non-G.M.O.

Lizanne Falsetto knew two years ago that she had to change how her
company, thinkThin, made Crunch snack bars. Her largest buyer, Whole
Foods Market, wanted more products without genetically engineered
ingredients — and her bars had them. Ms. Falsetto did not know how
difficult it would be to acquire non-G.M.O. ingredients.

ThinkThin spent 18 months just trying to find suppliers. “And then we
had to work to achieve the same taste and texture we had with the old
ingredients,” Ms. Falsetto said. Finally, last month, the company began
selling Crunch bars certified as non-G.M.O.

The Non-GMO Project
was until recently the only group offering certification, and demand
for its services has soared. Roughly 180 companies inquired about how to
gain certification last October, when California tried to require
labeling (the initiative was later voted down), according to Megan
Westgate, co-founder and executive director of the Non-GMO Project.

Nearly 300 more signed up in March, after Whole Foods announced that all
products sold in its stores would have to be labeled to describe
genetically engineered contents, and about 300 more inquiries followed
in April, she said.

“We have seen an exponential increase in the number of enrollments,” Ms. Westgate said.

The shift is evident in prices of nongenetically modified crops, which
have been rising as more companies seek them out. Two years ago, a
bushel of non-G.M.O. soybeans cost $1 to $1.25 more than a bushel of
genetically modified soybeans. Now, that premium is $2. For corn, the
premium has jumped from 10 cents to as high as 75 cents.

“We’ve had more calls from food processors wanting to know if we can
arrange for non-G.M.O. supplies,” said Lynn Clarkson, founder and
president of Clarkson Grain, which sells such conventional grains.

In this country, roughly 90 percent or more of four major crops — corn,
soybeans, canola and sugar beets — are grown from genetically engineered
seeds, creating a challenge for companies seeking to swap to
ingredients sourced from conventional varieties. A portion of the
conventional varieties of those crops is exported, and much of the rest
of those crops is already spoken for by organic and other companies
here.

Additionally, the livestock industry is increasing its demand for
non-G.M.O. crops to meet growing demand among consumers for eggs and
meats sourced from animals that have never eaten genetically modified
feeds.

On Saturday, at least two million people in 436 cities in 52 countries
rallied in protests against the seed giant Monsanto and genetically
modified food, according to the organizers of the “March Against
Monsanto.” The company, based in St. Louis, is the largest producer of
genetically engineered seeds and the pesticides used to protect them.

Farmers have long crossbred plants to improve genetics in an effort to
increase productivity and resistance to pests and diseases, and decrease
the need for water, among other things.

The type of genetic engineering done by Monsanto and its competitors,
however, involves inserting genetic materials, sometimes from wholly
different plant species and bacteria, directly into the DNA plants like
corn or soybeans.

Regulators and some scientists say this poses no threat to human health,
but a growing number of consumers are demanding increased information
about what is in their food, whether it is gluten or genetically
engineered ingredients.

Monsanto said it respected people’s right to express their opinion, but
maintained that its seeds improved agriculture “by helping farmers
produce more from their land while conserving natural resources such as
water and energy.”

Mr. Clarkson said that, so far, there were more of those non-G.M.O.
crops than buyers for them, and large companies like Silk and Hain
Celestial that have long been users of conventional crops say they are
not worried.

“I don’t think you can discount the number of companies that are not in
favor of labeling, which is what is driving demand right now,” said
Ellen Deutsch, senior vice president and chief growth officer at Hain.
“But if demand does grow, we will need to maintain our longstanding
relationships with our suppliers.”

Errol Schweizer, national grocery buyer at Whole Foods, said he was
already seeing shortages in organic and conventional seeds, as well as
in commodity ingredients sourced from conventional crops.

“Suppliers are going overseas to get what they need,” he said. “We know
farmers need to feel secure that there’s a market for what they grow,
and I’m saying, please plant these crops, there is a demand.”

Dealers in conventional crops say more farmers will switch to them if
the demand is there, but it will take time. Most food-processing
companies have an 18-month supply chain for crops like corn and soy,
which means that if they begin making a switch today, the earliest they
might get certification would be in 2015.

And farmers cannot simply replace genetically engineered seeds with
conventional ones, because soil in which genetically modified crops have
been grown may not be immediately suitable for conventional crops.

“There’s a transition period required,” said Richard Kamolvathin, senior
vice president at Verity Farms, which sells meats, grains and other
products derived from conventional crops, as well as natural soil
amendments. “You don’t just stop growing G.M.O. seed and then start
growing non-G.M.O. seed.”

Every ingredient in a product must be verified by affidavit, and storage
and processing facilities, as well as transportation equipment, must be
scrubbed of all traces of genetically modified supplies.

Those requirements may be too high a hurdle for some food processors.
Big makers of pivotal ingredients like corn and soy oil, for instance,
cannot easily switch back and forth between genetically engineered and
conventional sources.

Even companies that use conventional crops in production have to work
hard to get certified. Silk, a large maker of soy and nut “milks,” has
used soy beans from plants that are not genetically modified since its
founding.

But it took the company some eight months to gather and compile lists of
all its ingredients, affidavits from suppliers, test records and other
information, then go through independent testing for confirmation,
before its products gained non-G.M.O. certification — and it helps
underwrite the Non-GMO Project.

“It’s a pretty significant undertaking,” said Craig Shiesley, senior
vice president for plant-based beverages at WhiteWave Foods, the parent
company of Silk. “We make 100 million gallons of soy milk using one
million bushels of soy beans, and this affects not only all those
bushels of soy beans and other ingredients like vitamins and flavorings,
but also all of our manufacturing and distribution.”

While Whole Foods tries to help suppliers procure non-G.M.O. ingredients, its labeling initiative is causing headaches.

“Whole Foods has come in the back door and inadvertently created something of a crisis,” said Reuven Flamer, the founder of Natural Food Certifiers,
which certifies foods as organic or kosher and is now adding non-G.M.O.
certification to its list of services. “People who make organic
products support non-G.M.O. standards, but they are already paying a
premium for their supplies and certification.”

Based on the demand he is seeing for non-G.M.O. certification, Mr.
Flamer says it is almost certain the supply of conventional seeds and
crops, and derivatives of those crops, is going to become an issue.

That worries Manuel Lopez, whose family owns El Milagro, a tortilla and
tortilla products company in Chicago. “We’ve always used non-G.M.O.
corn,” he said, “and our concern is about our supply.”

The cost of the corn El Milagro uses is roughly 1.7 times the cost of
genetically engineered corn, he said, and the company cannot pass on all
the additional cost to customers.

Mr. Lopez is hopeful, though. “I believe there are a lot of farmers who
want to get away from G.M.O.,” he said. “If they see more demand, I
think they will respond.”

I spoke at length with the leader of the effort, Tara Cook-Littman of GMO Free CT, who worked for the past two years as a volunteer. (See the group’s impressive list of coalition partners.)

She said for a long time efforts to pass labeling bills went nowhere,
but things started to change two years ago once advocates formally
organized themselves. While at first she and others “were dismissed as a
bunch of crazy moms and environmentalists,” things started to pick up
last year “when advocates were able to show themselves to be a serious
movement with political power.”

What about the opposition? Cook-Littman said it was formidable, and that
industry made all the same fear-mongering arguments we heard last year
during Prop 37 in California about higher food prices and confusing
consumers.

In addition, Cook-Littman told me about the front group industry formed to oppose the bill, “Connecticut Farm to Food.” (For more about front groups, see my recent report.)
This group’s home page claims boldly if inexplicably, “Forced labeling
will drive business and science out of Connecticut.” Listed as sponsors
are three groups: The Council for Biotechnology Information (a trade
group for the biotech industry; its website is whybiotech.com), the Connecticut Retail Merchants Association,
and the previously mentioned Grocery Manufacturers Association. In
other words, two of these three groups behind this “Connecticut”
organization are based in Washington DC.

The toughest opposition though, Cook-Littman said, came from the
Connecticut Farm Bureau, which claimed the bill would hurt farmers,
despite the bill not even being about farming, but rather food products.
“They claimed that farmers’ sales of value-added products would be
destroyed if they had to be labeled,” she said. But as a strong
counterweight, advocates had the support of the state’s numerous organic
farmers, led by the Connecticut Chapter of the Northeast Organic Farming Association, which Cook-Littman called “our truest partner.”

Still, how did this grassroots group fight off such high-powered
lobbyists representing at least three major industries – biotech, food
retailers, and food manufacturers? She said, “We just got louder.”

What exactly was the turning point for the movement? Cook-Littman said
face-to-face meetings with politicians were critical. “We spent a lot of
time developing relationships with our representatives. Just spending
that time with them was invaluable,” she said.

And simply showing up in massive numbers when it counted: at two
critical rallies, one before the legislative session began, another just
weeks ago, along with a huge turnout for the hearing.

Cook-Littman credits the national advocacy group Food Democracy Now! for
being a vital partner in the effort. “We could not have done it without
them. They always believed in us, while others discounted us,” she
said. “They also helped drive more than 40,000 phone calls to the
governor’s office and provided strategic advice along the way.”

Dave Murphy, founder and executive director of Food Democracy Now!, told
me that another turning point was when Jerry Greenfield of Ben and
Jerry’s Ice Cream came to the capital to testify in support of the bill.

“That gave the issue instant credibility because Ben and Jerry’s is a
very successful company. There were politicians who had been against the
bill standing in line for ice cream and a photo opp with Jerry.”

Also, there were several times during the process when they thought the
bill was dead. But the advocates didn’t give up; another crucial lesson:
to hang in there.

Of course, to get any bill difficult bill passed, compromises must be made along the way. While the labeling provisions of the bill are strong, unfortunately, legislators added a “trigger
clause,” which requires that four other states in the northeast region
enact similar bills before the law takes effect in Connecticut.

Cook-Littman told me that the advocates fought to keep this provision
out, but at the end of day they were advised to take the compromise or
else risk the bill going down to defeat, with an uncertain future. She
is quite confident that the clause will actually motivate other states
to get bill passed. And as a member of the Right to Know Coalition of States, she is determined to help others in doing so. She also hopes the passage helps the Washington State ballot measure coming up for vote this November.

What advice does Cook-Littman have for advocates in other states facing similar opposition from powerful lobbyists?

“I told my fellow advocates, ‘Stand in your power as a constituent and
let your representatives hear you.’ Too often, we give up our power,”
she said. “But once you realize that you can make a difference, that’s
when change happens. Also, stay the course and keep fighting.”

Dave Murphy called the Connecticut victory “one giant step for
Connecticut and one giant leap for the GMO labeling movement.” He
continued: “The grassroots have won the day in Connecticut for a key
victory over Monsanto and the biotech lobby. It was inspiring to watch
Connecticut legislators supporting GMO labeling stand strong in the face
of the biotech industry’s effort to kill the bill.”

Also feeling inspired, Cook-Littman told me, “It truly feels amazing to
know that our little state of Connecticut, with its grassroots power,
was able to beat back the opposition to get the bill passed. I really do
think it is an important step and will encourage other states to do the
same.”